An outstanding large marble torso of a Guardian King (Tianwang) China, Tang Dynasty, 8th - 10th Century

extremely finely carved with robustly swelling volumes, the portly figure standing with left leg brought up as if to rest his foot upon a writhing demon or recumbent animal now missing, his corresponding right hip thrust sharply out below the swelling volume of large paunch, the shoulders thrown wide as if the missing arms were held akimbo supporting a halberd or other attribute, the neck almost hidden beneath his swollen jowls, the face with bulging eyes beneath a deep frown, the bulbous nose above a deeply down-turned scowling mouth expressing great inner dignity and determination, his head framed by a tight helmet cap with peaked finial and upturned ear-flaps, the armor all finely detailed with horned lion-mask epaulettes, a fluted collar with tapering curled lapels, a breastplate set with plain medallions and a chain-mail apron of interlinked trefoil diaper secured by broad straps above and beneath his enormous belly, before dividing into three plates at the hips above layered skirts falling in flattened folds to the knees (stand)

The present figure is a rare representation in marble of the more typical carved wood and glazed pottery forms of guardian kings found in Buddhist temples and the tombs of nobility. While the earthenware examples were made for funerary purposes, to protect the spirit of the deceased, and were known as lokapala, those used within Buddhist triad groups are more accurately known as dharmapala, Protectors of the Dharma, the Buddhist Law. Found in sets of four, they are Heavenly Kings, who guard the four directions of the universe and represent the universal dominance of that Law over all planes of existence. They reside on the four slopes of stepped Mount Meru, the center of Buddhist cosmology and its axis mundi, and this is reflected in their placement on the four corners of the main temple altar, around the main Buddha figure, as they are mainly found in Chinese and Japanese temples to the present day. 

While individual lokapalas were already found in 1st century BCE sites in Bharhut, Madhya Pradesh, India, the first Chinese representations of them are probably four small guardians painted on the east and west walls of Cave 285 in Dunhuang datable to 538 CE. The rotundity and armored costume of the present figure clearly follows the 'International Style' of the High Tang period, with an almost unerring feel for textural variation and progression of volume in sculpture - the figure's expressiveness and litheness of bearing contrast strongly with the profoundly convincing sense of body mass and its formal heiratic posture. Compare a pair of marble lokapalas, excavated at Xi'an, Shaanxi province, in 1983, and in a style circa 725 CE probably slightly earlier than that of the present figure but extremely close to contemporary funerary sancai glazed earthenware figures, exhibited China: Dawn of a Golden Age (200 - 750AD), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004, cat.no.231, together with a rare pair of gilt-bronze figures, cat.no.230.